Saturday, November 6, 2010

Life and Death in Oakwood

Do not go gentle into that good night...

Animals are not good or evil. They don't have morals. They are just being what they are. I tend to be a live and let-live person. For instance, I can tolerate having my feeders destroyed, and feeding my suet and birdseed to a lot of thieves, squirrels, chipmunks, crows, possums ..... and raccoons. It is part of the price one pays. But then there was The Fish Incident. All of them gone in one night, killed beyond the killers ability to even eat them. I know they were just glorified carp, but in our climate they have to be taken indoors and overwintered in a large tank. I had time, money and had even developed an emotional attachment to them. This fall I didn't protect them as well as I should have. They didn't have a chance. They were fish in a barrel. Sometimes death comes quietly, she sneaks up in the night on soft pussytoes. Other times, death comes as the dark rider wielding a black iron mace. I cannot say what is befalling all of Oakwood's koi-fed creatures, but this one never saw it coming. He was dropped in his tracks by the very hammer of death. And I feel a great deal satisfaction.

That's how the cookie crumbles if you eat another man's Carp. I trust that you have prepared the skin for use as a cycling mitt? Or would that not work on the Kvale bike?Maybe send it up to Doug of Duluth, looks like he's going to need some hand protection soon.

I just dealt with the other one. You could almost make a vest from it. Big. Easily 20+ pounds. No wonder it was able to break the suspension chains, etc from the bird feeders. I'm happy that the pug dog never tangled with it.